Movie Reviews

Amazing!

Alexus J. Faldet | Fargo, ND United States | 02/03/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Without going into too much detail, this documentary is amazing. The speakers are all experts in their respective fields, and the historical accuracy is beyond reproach. I found no such "religious hatred" anywhere in the film; again, pure historical accuracy. (To put it very VERY lightly, medieval Christians weren't exactly friendly to their Jewish neighbors. Look into it before getting all defensive, please.)An excellent base of information for anyone with an interest in this watershed event in human history."

Absolutely loved this DVD!

Rhett D. Sorensen | Provo, Ut USA | 05/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A perfect E squared (entertainment/education). Very well done and interesting documentary on mankinds deadliest killer ever! If you enjoy medieval histroy then this is a must. The plague transformed the face of Europe and affected life in inumerable ways. I highly recommend this entertaining and educational DVD."

The profound impact of the "Black Death"

Matthew G. Sherwin | last seen screaming at Amazon customer service | 01/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Plague is a very fine documentary by The History Channel; it gives us a great deal of information about the "Black Death" or what was probably the bubonic plague that killed up to half of Europe's and Asia's population when it spread uncontrollably in the late 1340s. While this film is extremely educational, there are some not so pretty scenes (the flagellants walking from village to village, for example) that make me want to warn you that small children and sensitive people could be upset by some of the footage. On the other hand, however, it is an excellent telling of the story; and the pace moves along very well. There's lots of time spent to make sure that we really understand what happened and how; things never felt rushed. In addition, the quality of the print is excellent.

Some may say that the reenactments of events that occurred during The Plague are overdone or poorly acted but I thought it was all done rather professionally and with great care. I particularly like the way the filmmakers wove together reenactment scenes with interviews with today's scholars who know so much about the illness; and the narration was also done very well. It is through all these things put together that we get the complete story of this outbreak of bubonic plague and how it rushed through so much of the world so fast; and we see how physicians of the day were powerless to cure people of it or prevent it for that matter. We see the flagellant movement gaining strength and then waning in Germany; we learn how the Church was challenged by the devastation and we also learn about wealthy people who tried to escape the plague by fleeing cities for country estates where they were more isolated. In addition, the film covers the blaming of Jews for the plague simply because Jews were not exactly well liked.

Of course, there's much more information here than I'm going to give to you, including the prevailing theories of what caused the disease, how the illness spread and the other things desperate people did to try to ward off the plague. I don't want to spoil it for you!

Overall, this excellent documentary does a top-notch job; we learn the story of the "Black Death" and what happened during its outbreak and after it faded, too. I highly recommend this film for anyone studying this period in history; and people studying how infectious diseases spread in the past as well as how they spread in our times would do well to add this to their collections."